Application of liquid-liquid chromatography as a sample pretreatment method for quantitative analysis of synephrine in Fructus aurantii immaturus

Abstract

A method for quantitative determination of the main active ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine was developed and validated, using liquid-liquid chromatography combined with high performance liquid chromatography, which was successfully applied to synephrine in Fructus Aurantii Immaturus. A biphasic solvent system composed of ethyl acetate - n-butanol - water - trifluoroacetic acid (1:2:3:0.003, v/v) was used to purify the crude extract of the samples by liquid-liquid chromatography. Then, quantitative analysis of synephrine in Fructus Aurantii Immaturus could be well determined by high performance liquid chromatography. Moreover, the collection time and retention time of synephrine could be well predicted using a continuous-stirred tank reactors model. Compared with previous studies, the present method showed advantages of good recovery, good repeatability, high selectivity to target components and simple operation.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Fructus Aurantii Immaturus
• liquid-liquid chromatography
• quantitative determination
• sample pretreatment
• synephrine

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [21978266] and Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province [LY19B050005].